


A Finally Sleeping World

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Midwinter, Peace, Quiet, Silent Night, Silvery Night, Winter, short and sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:55:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28135776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Shinko and Roald on a silent, silvery night.
Relationships: Roald II of Conté/Shinkokami of Conté
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	A Finally Sleeping World

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Merry Melodies Challenge at Goldenlake. Inspired by Amy Grant's "I Need a Silent Night."

"I need a silent night, a holy night

To hear an angel voice through the chaos and the noise

I need a midnight clear, a little peace right here

To end this crazy day with a silent night."-

Lyrics from "I Need a Silent Night" by Amy Grant

A Finally Sleeping World 

Shinko stood on the balcony of the bedchamber she shared with Roald, admiring how the entire world seemed to stretch before her in silver silence. The snow, which muffled all sound of the final stragglers leaving the night’s revelries to stumble in a drunken stupor to their beds, sparkled in a reflection of the moonlight and starlight that illuminated the dark winter sky arching above. The Olorun, frozen and free of skaters at this late hour, shimmered like fish scales. 

How Shinko needed this silvery silence and soaked it up like cold skin drinking in flame from a fire after too long in a winter’s wind after another Midwinter’s party where she was expected to be polite, poised, graceful, and never less than politically astute. The ceaseless prattle of the courtiers had frayed at her every last nerve though she hadn’t let her courteous smile waver, the festive music had made her ears ache in irritation that she couldn’t be that cheerful herself, and the dancing had made her knees ache. 

She wondered if she could blame the last of these complaints at least on the second child she carried within her womb, but Lian had never exhausted her so much when she was pregnant with her. Perhaps she was only getting old with weary bones and a declining sense of humor. Old people craved their solitude and must come to love their silver hairs, didn’t they? 

“There you are.” Roald stepped through the door and came to stand beside her. “I’ve been looking all over for you.” 

He didn’t sound chiding but concerned, an impression he confirmed by continuing, “I’ve been worried about you. I didn’t know where you’d disappeared to…” 

Her husband was a good man who always had the best possible intentions for everyone, but he was too prone to fretting. 

“Did you think I got swept up in a strong gust of wind?” she teased him gently. 

“I didn’t know where you were,” Roald repeated, wrapping an arm around her waist. “Do you need anything? A goblet of mulled wine or a blanket to warm you?” 

“I had all the mulled wine I could drink at the party, and I’m enjoying the cold right now.” Shinko leaned into his touch. “All I need at this moment is a silent night like this one. A silent night to forget all the politics and the noise of a court party. Something real and true to breathe in after the exhausting fakeness of the entire wearying event. A silent night like this one.” 

She probably sounded crazy (because who preferred standing on a silent cold balcony lit only by moon and stars instead of in an opulent ballroom filled with a hundred swirling satin gowns in a rainbow of holiday colors and radiant with a thousand golden candles?) but Roald appeared to understand her particular brand of lunacy. 

“Some call the silence of a winter’s night chilling and eerie, but I always found it soothing.” Roald seemed to slip into a reverie. “When I was little, sometimes when the nursemaids and my siblings were deep in their dreams, I would sneak out of my bed and onto my balcony just to stare out at the stars and savor the silence of a finally sleeping world.” 

“I can picture that.” Shinko glanced at her husband with a playful glimmer in her black eyes conjured by the portrait his words had created for her. “My husband, the eternal sneak.” 

He chuckled, an expression of amusement few could draw from him, before asking softly, “Is your husband sneaking where you don’t want him now?” 

“No.” Shinko rested her cheek in the curve between Roald’s head and shoulder, a gesture that always made her feel safe and secure in a swiftly shifting world in perpetual motion. “My husband could never sneak where I don’t want him because I want him around always.” 

“That pleases your husband because he wants to be around you always.” Roald kissed her forehead, and, after that, the two of them stood side by side. Quiet as stone. Soaking the silver silence of a moon and star lit night into their souls. Admiring a river that shimmered like fish scales. Disturbing the peace of the night with nothing more than the steaming white puffs of their breathing.


End file.
